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Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:40 pm
by Holy Schnikes
Apparently scientists have measured particles traveling faster than the speed of light, data that, if accurate, would disprove Einstein's theory of Special Relativity. Looks like these discoveries are about to be verified by fellow scientists/physicists. Serious implications to our understanding of the universe? Possible time travel?? Let's hope so.
Looks like Doc Brown and Marty Mcfly were onto something...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/ ... CW20110922
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong?? Maybe s
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:52 pm
by devnulljp
We'll see ...
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong?? Maybe s
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:00 pm
by Holy Schnikes
devnulljp wrote:We'll see ...
I'm thinking they'll end up disproving the data as scientists have been busy testing Einstein's theories for a LONG time now only to discover the guy knew his shit. Still, I'm intrigued.
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:33 pm
by snipelfritz
More importantly, how can these discoveries lead to awesomer effects pedals?
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong?? Maybe s
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:48 pm
by devnulljp
Holy Schnikes wrote:devnulljp wrote:We'll see ...
I'm thinking they'll end up disproving the data as scientists have been busy testing Einstein's theories for a LONG time now only to discover the guy knew his shit. Still, I'm intrigued.
True, but he never did wrap his head around quantum mechanics.
My money's on (a) an error or (b) some weird quantum effect or high-dimensional hyperspace thing so it just looks to us like the particles have travelled faster than light or (c) an error
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 8:00 pm
by theavondon
Either way, color me intrigued.
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 8:20 pm
by Jero
snipelfritz wrote:More importantly, how can these discoveries lead to awesomer effects pedals?
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 8:40 pm
by futuresailors
I bet they measured the distance incorrectly.
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:11 pm
by Gearmond
iunno, its with quantum particles, so the general rule is "anything that applies to anything else, doesn't apply on this scale"
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:24 pm
by Holy Schnikes
futuresailors wrote:I bet they measured the distance incorrectly.
For real, that's probably exactly what happened. Here's another physicist laying out some facts on the matter:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... gle+Reader
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:46 pm
by snipelfritz
If these neutrinos can travel through the earth, couldn't they take a more direct route(i.e. underground) while photons have to follow the curvature of the earth which, from Switzerland to Italy, isn't very much but might just be enough(like they said 20 meters) to account for the discrepancy?
...but this is coming from a PoliSci/Communications major.
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:11 am
by bigchiefbc
I am like 99.999999999% sure it's going to come back as being some sort of error. I mean, seriously, a 60-nanosecond difference over the course of 500 miles? That means that they have to know the distance between the two points to within like 18 meters. Good luck with that.
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:49 am
by culturejam
bigchiefbc wrote:I mean, seriously, a 60-nanosecond difference over the course of 500 miles? That means that they have to know the distance between the two points to within like 18 meters. Good luck with that.
Maybe I'm just jaded, but 18 meters over 500 miles doesn't sound like a level of precision that can't be accomplished.
I mean,
civilian GPS is accurate to about 10 meters. They usually orbit at around 425 miles up, from info I can gather.
I'm just thinking that if my TomTom can pull off 10 meters, CERN probably has something more accurate. Maybe I'm assuming too much?
My big questions is how do you know for certain that the neutrinos passing the end point are the same ones you sent? It's not like you can put a collar on one.
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 11:49 am
by bigchiefbc
culturejam wrote:bigchiefbc wrote:I mean, seriously, a 60-nanosecond difference over the course of 500 miles? That means that they have to know the distance between the two points to within like 18 meters. Good luck with that.
Maybe I'm just jaded, but 18 meters over 500 miles doesn't sound like a level of precision that can't be accomplished.
I mean,
civilian GPS is accurate to about 10 meters. They usually orbit at around 425 miles up, from info I can gather.
I'm just thinking that if my TomTom can pull off 10 meters, CERN probably has something more accurate. Maybe I'm assuming too much?
My big questions is how do you know for certain that the neutrinos passing the end point are the same ones you sent? It's not like you can put a collar on one.
I'm not saying that you couldn't get a GPS reading that you'd be relatively confident in at that range, but that confidence level wouldn't be high enough to overturn a century of physics.
Re: Speed of Light Defeated? Einstein Proven Wrong??
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 11:55 am
by alexa.
I bet neutrinos are making trollfaces right about now.